Two leading rugby coaches in the country Sanath Martis and Fazil Marija have lauded the Webinar series on coaching organised by London-based former Kingswood and Police player Bandara Wekadapola the influential Sri Lankan member of the London Society of Rugby Football Union Referees. The Webinar conducted by Coach Educator RFU/London Irish Jack Pattinson on ‘Developing [...]

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Martis, Marija laud Webinar for Lankan rugby coaches

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Two leading rugby coaches in the country Sanath Martis and Fazil Marija have lauded the Webinar series on coaching organised by London-based former Kingswood and Police player Bandara Wekadapola the influential Sri Lankan member of the London Society of Rugby Football Union Referees.

The Webinar conducted by Coach Educator RFU/London Irish Jack Pattinson on ‘Developing Player Pathway’ on May 24 was oversubscribed with over 100 coaches from Sri Lanka registering for it. Pattinson represented Durham University and England Students, Ealing Trailfinders and Windsor before injury cut short his playing career.

“I also learnt a lot of new things,” said Martis who coaches Havelocks and St. Peter’s. “It was a very useful seminar,” added Kandy SC coach Marija.

“It was initiated by me along with Bandara when he had a chat with me about all this referees issues and all that. I told him I had an opportunity to go to Ireland to follow a director of rugby course. He said why don’t you come to England, I will fix you a good course over here. Then after two days he called me and asked me whether we can have a web seminar. I said very good go ahead and do it. He wanted me to start a Whatsapp group for Colombo coaches and I said we’ll put Fazil to organise Kandy coaches,” said Martis.

The topic was agreed upon by Martis, Fazil, Rajive Perera and Roshan Weeraratne via a conference call.

“We discussed what the topic we are going to have. All agreed to Fazil’s proposal to discuss ‘Player Pathway Development’. Wekadapola conveyed to Jack one week prior to the web seminar so he had fair amount of time to prepare. He gave some good points. We did a very nice session with Dilroy (Fernando) also joining it,” added Martis. Prior to the webinar by Pattinson, Wekadapola also conducted a recorded version of the ‘Coaching Talk’ given by England head coach Eddie Jones.

“Eddie Jones was doing the first one. It was a recording. It was really useful. We have 120 in the group. We will be continuing to do this. We had more than 80 coaches attending online seminar,” said former Sri Lanka star Marija who has a Level 1 and 2 coaching licence.

More significantly there is a great demand from local coaches who want to increase their knowledge during this period of inactivity and social distancing.

“Everybody was praising it highly. Therefore there is a big demand for it. Jack has promised Wekadapola that he will bring another coach educator for the next session. Everybody is happy to move forward from that point onwards. It’s a very positive thing,” said veteran coach Martis. “Basically all the coaches really appreciated Bandara Wekadapola and praised him for what he has done. Everybody made a request from him to continue this.”

“In 2018 I completed my L1 RFU coaching course. Jack is one of the tutors who conduct the programme. I met him by refereeing his high quality team few times and we built a good relationship over the years. He is a nice young up and coming coach around the county and RFU,” said Wekadapola who organised a second webinar for the Lankan coaches last week. The topic was ‘Player Recognition and Development’ conducted by Professor Richard Cheetham, a senior Fellow in Sports Coaching, University of Winchester.

Sri Lanka Rugby president Lasitha Gunaratne acknowledging Wekadapola’s initiatives said: “Whatever he is doing for referees and coaches is unofficial but there is no harm in gaining knowledge which is good for the sport’s development.”

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